The invention relates to contact systems in electric switch gear in which at least one of two cooperating contacts is associated with a soft resilient damping member.
Contact systems with clamping members for avoiding, or least attenuating, contact bouncing, are, e.g. known through German printed patent applications Nos. 1,052,510 and 1,123,015. These known damping members are rather compact bodies and they are directly connected to the backside of a contact or a contact bridge. The particular contact or contact bridge is either actuated via the clamping body or bears against such a body or bodies so that during contact actuation the damping bodies are deformed for absorbing kinetic energy which, if not absorbed, leads to bouncing and oscillations.
Specific contact arrangements are known and used, for example, in electromagnetic relays, wherein at least some of the contacts are carried by contact springs. Such springs are adventageous for producing contact pressure, but they are quite prone to bouncing. Damping members of the known variety cannot be mounted on such springs for the following reason. Assuming one would place a damping body behind a contact that is supported by and mounted on a contact spring, such body would have to be supported in some fashion by a stationary surface. Thus, upon engagement with that body, the contact would appear to be supported by that stationary surface, the damping body serving merely as spacer. At that point, some or even most of the resiliency of the contact mount is lost and no longer available for furnishing contact pressure.